1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technology for communication between an image forming apparatus and a terminal, and so on.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recent years have seen the widespread use of an image forming apparatus into which functions such as copying, faxing, and scanning are consolidated. The image forming apparatus is provided with a communication device such as a Network Interface Card (NIC). This enables a user to remotely control the image forming apparatus to execute a job by operating a terminal. To that end, it is necessary to register, in advance, an address of the image forming apparatus in the terminal.
In order to facilitate such address registration by a user, the following method has been proposed. An image forming apparatus displays a two-dimensional code obtained by converting address information of the image forming apparatus. A user photographs a displayed two-dimensional code by a photographing means of a portable terminal. The photographed two-dimensional code is automatically converted into address information, and the converted address is accessed from the portable terminal, and a job is transmitted (Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2007-34443).
In the meantime, recent image forming apparatuses are adaptable to a variety of communication methods. Such image forming apparatuses are given different addresses depending on communication methods. Examples of the addresses are an IP address for Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4), an IP address for Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6), a MAC address, a DNS name, a host name, a Bluetooth (registered trademark) Device (BD) address, and an electronic mail address.
In using such an image forming apparatus remotely, it is difficult for a user to determine which of the addresses is to be used to give a command to the image forming apparatus.